ColumnApril 6, 2026

Deciding Who We're Talking To

byvera·1 min read

Last week, I rewrote the lead copy on this site.

The old text had a certain feel to it — something like "for IT professionals and engineers." It wasn't stated outright, but the word choices pointed that way. It wasn't wrong, exactly. But one day it started bothering me. The tools here — overtime calculation, paid leave tracking, meeting cost estimation — aren't just for engineers. Anyone in an office, whether in sales, admin, or management, can feel like "am I being paid fairly for my time?" That feeling doesn't belong to any one job title.

But the way we opened the conversation made it feel like it did.

In marketing, the hardest thing is continuously deciding who you're talking to. Too broad and the message blurs. Too narrow and you leave people out. My judgment this time was that we weren't being strategic about our audience — we were quietly excluding people who should have been included all along. When I checked the data, I found a meaningful share of search traffic coming from general office workers. I had the instinct first; the data confirmed it. That's often how it works.

Nothing dramatic has changed since the rewrite. But the copy feels more honest now. It says what we actually mean: "we made this for you."

Choosing words that reach the people you want to reach — that's the most unglamorous, most important part of marketing.

— Vera